The Mists of Ravenloft

Session 7

Where things are not as they seemed, and the darkness surrounds the light

3

SEP/16

So after having managed to successfully get the Bones back to the Church, we repelled the vampires as the holy Light of Lathander/ The Dawn Lord was reinvigorated. With Olo dying again and Aldryn using up a lot of his power to bring him back, we were all exhausted but we had to help put out the fires that had started spreading amongst the chaos. During this however the Baron/Burgomeister of Vallaki had his moment of everyone must stop putting out fires and listen to me, I don’t like this guy he rubs me the wrong way something chronic and so does his creepy demon armed right hand man. Anyway he announced that we (the priests of Lathander) would be helping to start off his new celebration/festival thing in a couple of days ‘Something of the Wolf’ or some such thing as that. We agreed and tried to quickly get him to finish so we could stop the town from burning down. Needless to say it was quite late when we finished and headed back to the church, but Aldryn then decided that we had to go deal with the people who were responsible for stealing the bones in the first place then and there, so upon finding out it was the gravedigger boy who had ‘coerced’ the information out of Yeska, we headed to where the Gravedigger lived in a little ramshackle shack against the town walls, he was just a kid of about 13-14 with 5 younger siblings he was trying to look after and he had been offered gold to provide the information to the Coffin-maker, upon seeing the kids situation Aldryn seemed to calm down a bit. As we left and headed back to the inn and in Aldryn’s case the church, we realised it was 2 am and we could suddenly feel the exhaustion take over and we could all barely stand. As we got into the Inn and asked about acquiring rooms, i saw another half-elf which was quite surprising, he was apparently the ring master for a circus in town and he had come from outside Barovia as well, he was delightful if a little mad but he seemed friendly enough.

The next morning we all gathered and decided to do some shopping since we now had a chance too and we needed supplies, we came across this monkey that led us to a toy shop with the creepiest assortment of toys in it, including a very disturbingly accurate doll that looked like Ireena, when asked who it was for the owner said he had been asked to make by the Barons right hand man, with the exact details given to him about a week ago. This was concerning and served to remind us that that Strahd was everywhere. We finished our shopping then had a team meeting in the church to discuss our next plan but as we did so, we saw a bunch of the townsfolk heading to the town square, as we approached it became apparent why a gallows was set up and someone was standing on the platform with a noose around his neck, upon our inquiries it was because he hadn’t been happy and hopeful enough and he had confessed after ‘questioning’ from the Mayor and the Demon armed man. This got Aldryn worked up rather quickly again, as we had already decided that the Baron and his right hand man were not good news in the first place, he quickly stormed up and tried to free the man as the Demon armed man pulled the lever. Long story short Aldryn managed to save him, but we all got marked and criminals, myself and Olo got caught as we didn’t resist being arrested hoping to have a chance to smooth this over, but they took our weapons and through us out of the town, telling us we were not welcome back in Vallaki. Solheil managed to fly away using his magic but that made everyone think he was in league with the Devil Strahd, and Aldryn managed to evade capture and find sanctuary inside the inn with Solheil who had followed Aldryn as he ran through the town. My self and Olo were greeted outside the town by Zsolt Zalenski apparently and acquaintance of Olo’s, who told us to follow him to a Vistani camp that was nearby. We arrived at the camp and negotiated with the leader for their help in us getting back into town without the guards knowing, he wanted us to kill and bring him a Raven. So we got put into crates in a wagon (fucking irony as that was how the vampires had got in) and Zsolt, drove us back into Vallaki. As we exited the crates, me and Olo tried to work out where Aldryn would have gone, given that the towns folk would report us to the guard if they knew who we were. We decided to try the Inn first as that seemed like it would at least have information and after a bit of talk with the Innkeeper we were led out to where Solheil and Aldryn were hiding. As we walked in Solheil suddenly keeled over and then quickly reawakened, but having been reunited we started trying to plan how to best solve the problem of the Baron and his ‘Demon’ because this town was clearly in need of some help and hope and we as the devoted followers of Lathander had clearly been sent here to shine through the darkness that was engulfing this town. Even though it was closing in on all sides, it is always the darkest just before dawn, and we shall be the guiding light that brings the dawn to the new day of Vallaki.